Composed of forty-five sections, titled, each containing forty-five sentences, My Life is an experimental memoir poem. Hejinian avoids any semblance of narrative structure or linearity, except for these section headings. In a hodgepodge of conflicting timelines, unknown characters, and unresolved conflicts, she writes about the experiences of her life. Heijinian focuses largely upon the sense and their engagement in relation to memory.
While the overall narrative is nonexistent, or, at the very least, indistinguishable within the chaos, some of the sections may serve as a proverbial summary which offers flavor and body to the complete text. For instance, "A name trimmed with colored ribbons" follows a stream of consciousness narration from husking corn in log cabins to the shortcoming of language to surprise presents. As the heading implies, the present, once compared to receiving a pony for your birthday, is something trimmed with ribbons. The party decorations are misleading, however, because the "name" referenced is the particular kind of flower which Hejinian's grandmother plants. Although the young narrator didn't understand at the time how her grandmother's gardening could be a gift as exciting as a pony, she looks back in retrospect and imagines how such a thing could have been perceived by her younger self.
In kind, "As for we who 'love to be astonished'" discusses Hejinian's relationship to family in a circuitous and contradictory manner. She traces an incident when a plane flew into the bay, unannounced, and triggered an air raid drill. Although Hejinian, the child, didn't comprehend the potential danger, she observes how her mother was so helpless to change her fate. Her mom left the baby uncharacteristically alone while she stared out the window at the darkened city. As an adult, Hejinian ponders the gnarly and distasteful, nearly inexplicable, nature of war sparked by nationalism. She doesn't understand why different languages mean irreconcilably different values. Through this incident from early childhood, however, she concludes that family is the measure of a person's safety, regardless of how well that can be communicated.
